You need to edit your work. Let me say that again, just in case you missed it the first time:

YOU. NEED. TO. EDIT. YOUR. WORK.

It’s not a difficult concept to grasp – even the above words are simple, but it appears a lot of writers believe this is a stage that can be skipped or is entirely unnecessary (I shit you not). They’re wrong. So very wrong. Like, drowning in oceans of wrongness. I recently saw someone proclaim they didn’t need to edit their story before subbing; they’d written it in one sitting and it was good enough to sub without an edit.

No.

Just no.

And fuck off.

There’s a certain level of arrogance and ignorance tied into believing your work, your stories, don’t need another set of eyes to go over it. Forget the fact that you might have misspellings, verb tense issues, punctuation and dialogue anomalies; that your plot isn’t on point, your character is inconsistent, or, hell, that the story just doesn’t makes sense. How do you know the tale you’ve visualised has transferred to the page? Do you just not care? Or, are you so sure of your own “perfection” that no other input is necessary? That’s some high-level cognitive dissonance right there.

There are some stories that do just flow from your fingertips onto the page, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need at least a beta reader, someone to give you feedback, to ask questions of plot or dialogue or story direction. Things that will make your story better. Why would an author not want that? Why would you not want to improve not only your story, but your writing?

I’m a professional editor (yes, got the certificates and the industry experience to prove it), and I’m also a writer. Do I edit my own work? Of course I do. Do I send it to others to beta read? Damn straight. Do I have someone else edit it? Hell yes I do. Why? Because I’m too close to the story to see any issues it may have, because I want to know whether it makes sense, because maybe a question or note will make the story stronger, clearer, more kick-arse. Because I want MY BEST WORK out in the world, not just my: ‘fuck it, this’ll do’ work.

Of late, I’ve seen a surge in this ‘fuck it’ submission process, the belief that you just write and your subs will be accepted. Sure, there are places that will accept that “work”, and if ‘for exposure’ markets or ‘contributor copy only’ markets are your thing then… well, okay. You keep doing you. But why not aim higher? Do better?

It comes down to how you value what you do. How you value your readers. Writing is a craft, it needs to be honed, practised, built upon, and you never stop learning. EVER. If you believe you don’t need to edit, that you don’t need beta readers or those rejections that make you look again at your story and better it, then stagnant you will be, stale your stories will become.

Look, I can’t make you engage beta readers, I can’t make you use an editor or hell, even make you edit your own work, but I can guaran-damn-tee you, you won’t hit any of the success you’re wanting. Having a bibliography of pubbed stories in mags or anthologies no one’s heard of doesn’t up your author profile as much as you’d like to think it does. Give me a story published in Nightmare Magazine, or Grimdark Mag, Apex or Clarkesworld over multiple stories published in markets even Google would have trouble finding.

Writers are readers, we know the markets that accept only the highest possible standards, and those are the markets professional writers want to crack – and by professional, I mean those who take the process of writing and all it entails, seriously. Who know there’s more to writing than just words on a page.

It all really comes down to choice:

Be the writer who wants their work to be the best it can be, who wants constructive criticism for the sake of the story, who wants to be better, do better, and to break into those pro-paying markets who have the high standards for which you strive. To have publishers ask you to sub to them because they’ve seen your work and want it; to have readers search for your work because your tales resonated with them, because they love your storytelling.

Like this:

There’s little doubt you’ve heard of the furore/shitstorm/WTFedness going on over in Romancelandia regarding a certain author and their trademarking of a particular word to the exclusion of all other authors/titles. If you haven’t, head over to Twitter and the #CockyGate saga. Be careful, it’s a rabbit hole – you’ve been warned.

This isn’t how I intended to spend the start of my Monday morning, but I’m caffeinated and well, it’s Monday. So while I will wade into the sea of shit this author (she’ll get no naming rights here) has created, I’m not going to go into the epically stupid thing she’s attempting nor the blatant hypocrisy she trying to foist into her narrative (it’s outstanding), or the ‘How to Commit Career Suicide’ this so very much looks like. But I will address a few things; while this author plies her trade in the romance genre, this affects every author in every genre and sub-genre.

The first thing to get straight is that it’s a trademark she’s attempting, not copyright – two different things. If you’re going to go head-to-head with her and/or weigh in on this debate, please get that piece of information right. I’m not going to go into the legalities of it here, there are greater (and more willing) minds than mine to do that. But use the right term.

This author is using intimidation tactics to have other indie authors with the word ‘cocky’ in their book titles make changes or she will sue. Yep, you read that right. And one of the things she continually spouts is her “graciousness” to allow them to keep their earnings and reviews, so the changes they “must” make aren’t a big deal and won’t cost the author anything.

Yeah, that’s the bullshit I want to talk about. Indie, or self-published authors don’t have the backing (and funds) of those authors traditionally published. It costs money to edit your book, it costs money for cover art, it costs money for cover design/layout, it costs money to advertise. All of these expenses come out of the often very empty pockets of an indie author. Any changes to books currently uploaded to any and all platforms will require funds to have those changes made. It will cost not only money but time, and time lost often equals money lost, potential readers lost, potential sales lost. To threaten another author into doing so is delusional at best, reprehensible at worst.

All writers, myself included, write because to not do so hurts the soul. To have that passion stomped on, threatened, bullied, isn’t going to win you any favours, it isn’t going to win you readers, and it sure as shit isn’t going to win you market-share (or dominance).

Look, publishing is hard, getting your name out and your books sold in today’s market is hard, but you don’t go about it by stepping on other authors, you don’t go about it by trying to bankrupt other authors out of the market. It’s a big fucking table we’re sharing, and there’s room for everyone. And there are plenty of readers to go around.

Think of it as Ægir’s feast – your ale horns will never be empty, and there’s a regenerating boar outside providing limitless bacon for all.

Don’t try and block seats at the table, lest you want the chair pulled out from beneath you.

Like this:

The last six months have been… well, a little bit shit. There’s been good happenings, don’t get me wrong, but working through grief is a minefield. Good days. Bad days. Utter shite days. Minefield. Work has been a constant, which is good – get to pay bills and eat, always a bonus. And I’ve been writing, which is better.

Still, work has been eating up a lot of my time. I love my job, so much so that I don’t quite consider it “work”, although the hours I pull would beg to differ. The last two months especially so. Working from home is one of the many bonuses for my job; but it also means I don’t quite get to work set hours. This means I can be working ‘til midnight. I’m a night-owl, so that helps. I’m also up at 6.30am to squeeze in a run before organising the kids for the day.

It’s a long day. And of late, they’ve been exhausting days… weeks, really. Months, truly. The stories I’ve been working on have been amazing, but the body and mind can only take so much before it puts on the brakes whether you like it or not.

But better than that, is a partner who says: “Fuck this shit, we’re going away – you need a break before you break.” (He’s amazing.)

So we’re packing up the fam, and heading to the country. More specifically, my father’s farm. Three hundred acres of rolling hills, no Internet, crappy phone reception, solar-run facilities, and nothing but birdsong and cattle cries.

I hope to recharge, to do absolutely nothing, and perhaps deal with shit a little more than I have been. Maybe read. Perhaps write.

Remember to take those breaks, folks. Revitalise and recharge. I’ll see you on the other side of this holiday, a calmer, more zen person… and blogging far more regularly!

Like this:

It’s that time of year again. Award season. Or the nominating and voting of such. It’s a time for writers to really pimp their wares for reader-voted honours, or to pray to all the gods (or none) that it will be their name on a nice, shiny trophy.

I have a love/uncomfortable relationship with awards and the award-season. I’ve been lucky enough to win two Australian Shadows Awards (short fiction & graphic novel), and that’s a pretty damn fine high, I gotta say. Yet the whole idea of pimping my work makes me all kinds of uncomfortable. Sure, it’s part of the gig ‒ I get that ‒ and I do pimp my work because I’d be a fool not to. Some authors, though, have a gift for it. Me? I will pimp the shit out of friends’ work I love, but when it comes to my own… <insert squirming here>

What I do love about the award season is discovering new work and new authors. With so many books on the market, not all of which are good, and some that really have no right to be there (I’m looking at you, unedited books with shite covers), award season hones those great reads down for me. As an editor, my personal reading time is precious, so a poorly edited or plot-hole riddled book will make me stabby.

The preliminary ballot for the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards has also been announced, with some Aussie and Kiwi writers making their mark this year as well. Big up Alan Baxter for The Book Club;Lee Murray and Dan Rabarts for Hounds of the Underworld; and Aussie blogger Adrian Bookhead up for superior achievement in blogging for Grim Reader Reviews.

But wait, there’s more! The Aussie awards are open for nominations too: Australian Shadows, Aurealis, and Ditmar. Get eligible works in, folks, if you haven’t already.

Look, there’s probably a tonne more that are open, and the social media dance of books and nominations and votes and publicity and ‘read my book’ is inevitably coming, and it can be exhausting. Thing is, if your name isn’t King, Rowling, or Gaiman (for instance), chances are you work another job (or two) to pay bills and do things like eat. So award season is the opportunity to get your name and your work out there to new readers who just may buy your book. It may put you on the radar for future book deals. It could make a writer’s life a bit easier.

Conversely, awards aren’t the value of your work. I’ll say that again: AWARDS AREN’T THE VALUE OF YOUR WORK! I’ve read brilliant pieces that never won an award or made a shortlist. I’ve written stories I thought were pretty damn good that didn’t get a look in. It can be like a punch to the gut, no doubt, but awards don’t define you as a writer. They help, sure, and those trophies sitting on your desk or shelf are suh-weeeet, but once it’s all said and done, you’re still putting ink to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

What it boils down to is: MAKE GOOD ART. That’s all you can do. And if you’re shortlisted for an award, I tip my hat to you (it’s a fabulous hat). And if not? Keep writing, my friend, it’s the act of creating that draws you back to words, not the awards. Besides, there’s always next year.

Like this:

If it were up to me, I’d wrap 2017 in a whole pile of monkey shit and set that bitch afire. Twice. But part of me wants to hold tight to 2017, to never let that first part of it go. There was good in my 2017, but the shit… oh, the shit. When I look back on this year, I can see the wonderful in it: the successes, the people I’ve met, and those I’ve surrounded myself with. Of that, I am thankful, but the last half of this year especially was life-changing in a way you never want it to be. The way no one ever wants it to be.

There are some things you just never get over, and the loss of my mother darkens any good this year threw my way. This is the first time I’ve mentioned her passing publicly, and I’m not going to go into how amazing she was (she’s a hero, my hero), and how hard she fought (like a fucking Viking), or how fucked-up disease is (I never knew how much I could hate a thing), or how much I miss her (there’s an ache inside that will never go away). She deserves so much more than I could ever put into words.

Writing has always been a solace, but I’m only now starting to think of words again. Small and simple though they be, it’s a start. There’s a normalcy to it that my heart sometimes fights ‒ how can I be ‘normal’ again? But I can almost feel that slap upside my head. Like I said, a fucking Viking.

2017 was the year I had my mother. It was the year I did not.

So I wrote a thing, not long before the world ripped away what was light and good. It’s nothing special, but it’s from a life to which I can never return. A life where my mother’s heart beat in fierce defiance.

I wonder at its content; it resonates now in a way it didn’t when I wrote it. And while I want to see the end of this shittiest of shittest years, I also want to hold onto it and never let it go.

HARVEST

“In blood Skarja walks, the souls of all she’s killed the great shadow at her back!” Mira shouted above the storm’s fury as I grabbed my scythe. “My dreams do not lie!”

Too long I’d stayed; lines appearing on my wife’s face where they never would on mine. I’d run, draw Skarja away. Mira would be spared. This time, no children had I sired.

Howling winds rattled the shutters of our hut as Mira dragged me from the door. “She comes! Your name upon her lips!”

Fear for me darkened her eyes. That was why I’d loved again when I’d sworn nevermore. My kiss lingered, savouring lips I hoped would never curse my name.

“Flee,” I begged. “Wipe me from memory.” I charged into the storm. If I could get to the mountains, if—

Skarja loomed from the maelstrom, spitting my name like venom. “Evka.”

A thousand cuts glistened on her ebony skin, like lightning under the moon’s touch. I knew each one. Had delivered them with hate-fuelled rage ­‒ desperate for what she had that I did not. The shadow behind Skarja writhed as she gathered it to her, faces of the damned morphing into great black wings ‒ shredded and shrieking.

Like this:

Next in the Festivus Pimping of the Books comes from Anthony J Melchiorri in the form of his military horror series, The Tide. If you’re looking for monsters with a voracious appetite then this is the book… books for you! Like seriously, these are some of the best developed and creepy AF monsters created.

I’ve read five in this series, with the sixth novel only just released (must get on that), and the writing is phenomenally good. Melchorri knows how to weave a tale and keep the action and the tension high pretty much throughout the books. You get small reprieves, but in this world of monsters, any reprieve is welcomed.

As there are six books in the series, I’m not going to give you a breakdown of each – that’d take too long, but here’s the back-cover blurb for the first in the series ‒ The Tide:

Captain Dominic Holland leads a crew of skilled covert operatives and talented scientific personnel. He’s taken them to all corners of the earth to protect the United States from biological and chemical warfare. When his CIA handler, Meredith Webb, gives him a mission to investigate a disturbing lead on a laboratory based out of an abandoned oil rig, they discover the most terrifying threat to mankind they’ve ever faced—a genetically engineered biological weapon called the Oni Agent.

Back in the United States, Meredith discovers a frightening connection between the CIA and the Oni Agent. But her investigations are short-lived when the Agent spreads and brings mankind to its knees. Cities burn as it turns humans into warped creatures hell-bent on destruction.

Dominic and Meredith vow to do everything they can to combat the Agent and find a cure. But will their efforts be enough to turn the tide—or is humanity’s fate already sealed?

These are some badass creatures, and it’s clear Melchiorri’s has tapped into his background in Biomedical Engineering (do not let this man loose in a lab without a serious supply of caffeine) to warp humans into what the characters affectionately call “Skulls”. I’d so love to tell you why, but I don’t want to taint the joy of that discovery for you.

There’s a lot to love about this series: the characters are flawed and believable, the fight scenes are graphically awesome, the Skulls and the way their DNA warps them is most excellent, and the writing is sharp and on point. And guns. There’s a whole bunch of firepower in these books. Oh, and Melchiorri doesn’t shy from killing off characters – that’s a definite plus for me; sometimes you gotta make the hard call.

So if you’re looking to put some horror into your Christmas (and not just the horror of venturing into the Christmas crowds), then I can’t recommend this series enough.

Next in the Festivus of the Pimping of Books we’re going to hit some crime. Death and drugs and deception, oh my! Catherine Lee is an Aussie crime writer, and her Cooper & Quinn Dark Series is really starting to gain some well-deserved traction. Combining murder mystery and police procedural, and set in the heart of Sydney, I was hooked from the first book.

Lee’s narrative is sharp, and the crimes she ‒ or rather Detectives Cooper and Quinn ‒ tackle, could almost be ripped straight from the headlines. That’s the thing with Lee’s books, the crimes committed (and investigated) mirror the society we live in, and while not a didactic narrative on the world’s state-of-play, it does make you think.

Dark Edges is the fifth novel in the series (there are two novellas), and the twists and turns in this story don’t let up. Just when you think you have a handle on it… bam! But that’s what I like in a crime/mystery novel – you discover as the detectives do. And Lee seems to be ramping up the tension and odds with each book.

Here’s the back-cover blurb for Dark Edges:

A football player in the prime of his life is found dead from an apparent drug overdose. Was it an accident, suicide, or something more sinister?
Detective Charlie Cooper is struggling just to keep awake after some upheaval on the home front. But life is busy for everyone, and Cooper is intrigued from the start with this baffling case. Jimmy Dallas was a rising star with everything to live for – would he really have stuck a needle in his arm the week before the biggest match of his career?
Joel Maguire, for one, does not believe his best mate would have knowingly injected himself with anything. Reeling from the shock loss, and dealing with some issues of his own, the Rangers’ star player struggles to put one foot in front of the other, let alone play finals football.
Australian rugby league takes centre stage in the fifth book of Catherine Lee’s page-turning Dark Series. Strap yourself in as Cooper and Quinn tackle the controversial issue of drugs in sport.

Each of the book works as a standalone, so you don’t necessarily need to read them all, but with over-arching character development for both of the detectives, and some secondary characters popping up now and then throughout the other books… well, BOOKS! Who doesn’t love to read books?

I can’t recommend this series enough. Cooper and Quinn are well-developed, well-rounded characters, each with their own flaws and quirks. Having the setting pretty much in my own backyard is a such a welcome change to the generic US-based books that flood the market.

Recommended for those who love crime, murder mystery, police procedural, stabby-stabby, shooty-shooty (yeah, that sounded way better in my head). Look, just buy the book… hell, buy the whole series.